Saturday, October 12, 2013

Served up fresh! Our weekly roundup of favorite links to other blogs, web sites, articles, and images, gathered from around the Twitterverse.
• Museum unearths rare Charles Dickens newspaper.
• In 1816, an escaped lioness attacked a Royal Mail mail coach traveling from Exeter to London.
• 1890s Kodak moments: photographs taken with Kodak's first commercial cameras are now 125 years old.
• The chocolate chip cookie celebrates its 75th birthday in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
• Put up your dukes: a day in the life in pictures of a bare-knuckle boxer.
• Made by his crew in his memory: the miniature coffin of Captain Cook, 1779.
• Bookmobiles from a simple horse-drawn cart of the 19th c. to the four-wheelers of the 20th century.
• Can drinking tea turn you into a whore?
• Perfect for a Regency menu: 18th c. recipes for collaring meat.
• Illustrations from The Tour of Dr. Syntax through the Pleasures & Miseries of London, 1820.
• "Career Girl": picture portrait of a young woman in 1948 New York via Life magazine.
• Autumn Landscape by Tiffany Studios, c.1923 is a stunning "painting" in stained glass.
• English embroidery: the forgotten wonder of the medieval world.
• In 1869 a servant girl in NYC's United States Hotel gets even with the haughty "upper servants" - she poisons them.
• Kings in the Tower of London.
• The story behind artist & art historian William Dunlop's quite poor portrait of George Washington.
• Did women make the majority of the oldest cave paintings? New analysis says yes.
• Between method and execution: the Bolsheviks found it hard to kill the Romanov daughters because they had sewn their diamonds into their corsets.
• A brief history of the ruff.
• The Dancing Cavalier: the dual lives of Civil War General Edward Ferrero.
• Lost letters in the 18th century.
• Royal luxury: the newly reconstructed 15th c. Queen's Bathroom in Leeds Castle.
• The grandson of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson attempts to bring Sissinghurst to the 21st. century.
• Elizabeth Jackson, creator of early 19th c. knitting books.
• From a baby gas mask to the UV-ray baby branding prod: eleven terrifying childcare inventions from the early 20th century.
• The witches of Halloweens past: a brief history of witch costumes.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.